


I’ll be right here

by ICanSeeClearlyNow



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: A Plant Wrote This, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, E.T. AU, Established Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, No angst here, No one dies or even nearly dies like in the film, Non-Binary Pocha and Pom, Post-Canon, T rated because handsy Victor, Telepathic aliens, Telepathy, Viktuuri Fluff Bang 2019, narrow escape from angst, the little guys are aliens, very roughly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-01-06 08:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18385178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICanSeeClearlyNow/pseuds/ICanSeeClearlyNow
Summary: Victor and Yuuri are enjoying a well deserved break in the Caribbean after Yuuri's retirement from figure skating. Disturbed one night by noises in the kitchen of their holiday home they investigate; only to find two small aliens causing havoc...





	1. An Unfortunate Accident

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RTengu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RTengu/gifts).



> I've been longing to share this story and I can finally do so! Art by R-Tengu will follow. So with no further rambling please enjoy my contribution to the Viktuuri Fluff Bang 2019.

Yuuri shuffled back into Victor’s arms and gazed around the veranda, down to the beach where the sea gently whooshed against the sand. Leaning back, he put his head into the crook of Victor’s shoulder and gave the swing seat a gentle push with his dangling foot. Retirement was really quite nice.  His eyelids were heavy and the urge to close them and enjoy the gentle rocking motion in the arms of his husband was strong, but he wasn’t going to miss one second of this sunset.

They had been on their celebratory retirement holiday in the Caribbean for three weeks now. Yuuri still hadn’t tired of watching the sunset on those days when the horizon was completely free of clouds. The sun hovered over the water to the west just waiting to plummet down in a blaze of glory. In past days Victor had managed to distract Yuuri for those few vital minutes and he had missed it. He forced his eyes back open, determined to enjoy every last second of the display before it was over for another day. The world quickly plunging into darkness; so different from those long twilights in Detroit.

Victor had handed him a drink a few minutes earlier with an accompanying leer.

“Sex on the beach, darling?”

Yuuri winked back, “Why yes! I believe I would like that very much.” Victor’s eyes darkened and he put his drink down on the table next to the seat.

“Ah! Ah ah!” Yuuri waggled his finger at Victor, who pouted. “At least let me finish the drink you’ve made first and watch the sun go down. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to this.”

Victor subsided and bent over to give Yuuri a chaste kiss on the lips. It still made Yuuri’s breath catch even after all these years. “Sit! It’ll be over and you’ll have missed it.”

“Move over, I know exactly where I want to sit.” Victor grinned and eased in behind Yuuri on the seat, putting his free hand round Yuuri’s waist. The hand gently eased its way under Yuuri’s t-shirt and caressed his waist.

“Victorrr!” He complained, grabbing the hand and pulling it out from underneath. “I’m not going to miss this sunset because you can’t wait five minutes.”

“But Yuurrii,” Victor murmured in Yuuri’s ear, making Yuuri repress a shudder as Victor’s lips brushed his earlobe. “This is too romantic: Sunset in the Caribbean, a beautiful veranda with a swing seat, Sex on the Beach and you.”

Yuuri sipped his orange and yellow drink and sighed. “You make that joke every evening Victor.”

They sat in silence, a drink in one hand and their other hands intertwined. Yuuri drew in a breath and held it as the sun rapidly moved to kiss the ocean and then disappeared. He really couldn’t get used to how quickly sunset was over in the Caribbean. It was always dark a few minutes later and then the chirrup of the tree frogs would start.

As soon as the light had almost gone, Victor moved over and murmured, “So, about the sex on the beach.”

Yuuri smiled and turned his head to look at his husband, “I don’t know, I’ve heard that sex on the veranda is pretty good too.”

Victor placed both his hands on Yuuri’s side and pushed him up off the seat. “Dance with me Yuuri and then I’ll take you inside.” He whispered into Yuuri’s ear.

Yuuri snorted, but took Victor’s hand and stood, allowing himself to be pulled upright into Victor’s arms. He looked into Victor’s blue eyes, which almost glowed in the dying light and the noise of the tree frogs died out. Yuuri then realised that it wasn’t Victor’s eyes that were glowing but something behind him that was reflecting in Victor’s eyes, which were now wide and staring over Yuuri’s shoulder.

“Yuuri!” Victor gasped, awestruck by whatever he could see.

Yuuri spun around and watched as a series of rainbow lights grew from somewhere on the hill above the house. The lights merged and twisted in a sheet of rainbow hues. The tendrils of light grew towards the sky in a dazzling column. Suddenly a blazing white light shot upwards forcing their eyes closed . When they opened them again the column had disappeared. Gradually the night-time noises started up again around them.

“Wow! That was incredible!” Victor breathed.

“What was it? I’ve never seen anything like that.” Yuuri’s voice was just as quiet.

There was silence for a minute or two, while they both tried to understand what they’d just seen, and then Victor bounced on his toes and grabbed Yuuri by the hands saying, “Let’s go and investigate!”

“Wha–?”

“We can use our phone torches and go and find out if there’s anything there!”

“Victor.” Yuuri used the same tone that you would use on an overexcited child. “It could be dangerous, we’re a long way from any other people.”

“Yuuriiii,” Victor purred in that low voice Yuuri found so hard to resist, even going to the length of brushing Yuuri’s cheek with his knuckles. A gesture he knew made Yuuri cave in 99.9% of the time. “You only live once. We’re both retired, we should have some fun for once.”

“And you call tramping through a jungle-like forest in the dark, fun?” To give him credit, Yuuri tried; he really did.

“Yes! Come on.” Victor bounced on his toes again and used his blue eyes and fringe to full effect.

Yuuri caved in. He shook his head and shooed Victor inside with him to at least put some trousers and decent walking shoes on. This was ridiculous, what did they think they were going to find?

As they climbed the hill, their phones made good enough torches to see the relatively sparse undergrowth and tripping hazards like roots. They’d seen nothing by the time they reached the top and the trees blocked the starlit view over the next valley.

“It’s been a nice walk, but can we go back now? I don’t think there’s anything to see, Victor.”

“Yes,” Victor looked sad for a moment, but then cheered up. “It has been a nice walk, hasn’t it? I’ve got you all to myself.” Victor came closer and his voice pitched down an octave. “What should I do? I’m feeling very much like the wolf that’s caught little red riding hood in the middle of the woods.” He leered at Yuuri in the light from his phone the shadows highlighting his face with stark black and white.

Yuuri spluttered a laugh and then pitched his voice high, “Oh No! Whatever shall I do? The big b..bad w...wolf i–” he couldn’t hold the laugh in any longer and bent over cackling. He then pushed at Victor with one hand. “You’re impossible.”

Victor raised one eyebrow, elegantly and grinned. “I aim to please.” He linked his arm into Yuuri’s as they walked back down the hill.

From behind them, there was a loud whirr of helicopter blades and a blaze of light. They jumped in shock and then spun around and watched as searchlights ran back and forth over the forest where they thought the lights had been. They looked at each other worriedly.

“We should probably get back to the house,” Victor said.

“Definitely.”

Their mood more sober, they quietly made their way back through the forest. The shock of the lights actually being real enough to have helicopters searching for whatever caused them, was enough to clear any lingering effects of alcohol from their systems.

Yuuri closed the door firmly and locked it as soon as they were inside. “Now...now I’m creeped out.” He hugged his arms around himself.

Victor stepped forward, wrapped Yuuri in a hug and kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry, my love. I should never have suggested it. Let me make us a hot chocolate and then we can go to sleep.”

“Mmmm, a hot chocolate sounds lovely.” Yuuri snuggled into Victor more and then kissed his neck.

“Yuurii.” Victor warned, “you’d better stop that or you won’t be getting your drink.”

Yuuri laughed quietly and pulled back. “Get me my hot chocolate, Victor! It’s the least you can do after making me climb a hill at the end of the evening.” As Victor turned away Yuuri swatted him on the bottom and then danced back out of reach, earning him a glare and a slowly wagging finger. He laughed again and made shooing gestures at Victor who adopted an injured air and stalked into the kitchen. Yuuri followed, still laughing and perched himself on a stool at the breakfast bar to watch Victor make the drink.

They didn’t have to think about returning to civilisation for another week, Yuuri had just competed and won his fifth gold medal at the World Championships, as promised. The days had slipped by in a haze of relaxation, with the occasional shopping trip to the nearby town.

The island was large enough that they had privacy in their secluded beach house and the very definition of a tropical jungle. The local population and all the normal tourists were mostly centred around the town and capital on the northern edge. Luckily it was far away from the house Chris had offered Victor and Yuuri as a get-away, courtesy of his rich uncle. Yuuri hadn’t seen a paparazzi for days. It was bliss.

When they would eventually return to Russia, Victor was going to take over from Yakov, who was taking a well earned late retirement. Yuuri was going to start his sports therapy business, finally getting to use the degree he’d taken all those years ago. He would have to spend a year taking refresher courses and further qualifications before he was ready, but if he was honest with himself he was really looking forward to it. As Victor had found, success came with its own price and it was one Yuuri didn’t want to pay any more.

~

~

~

~

The Aonirs had accidentally transported down to the planet they were observing in a blaze of lights usually reserved for diplomatic displays. In the darkness, without lights and their Tocato they had no idea where they were or how to find their way back to the ship.

How long would it be before they were missed and a rescue party sent for them? They knew that they had to get away from the landing site as quickly as possible. The indigenous inhabitants were intelligent and had flying transport so they would investigate soon. They had stumbled over tree roots and nearly fallen down cliffs in their fright. Po was just a scientist, not an explorer, they hadn’t signed up to get lost on strange planets, just observe them. Pom was the explorer, but even they were struggling to cope without their usual equipment.

Pom was worrying about the smaller Po as they rushed along. They didn’t see the tree root, and despite Po’s quick _watch out!_ They fell flat on their face. They both froze as the flying machines of the inhabitants swept overhead, heading for the site where they had transported down. As soon as they had disappeared over the tops of the trees Po and Pom headed down the hill.

 _I’m hungry, Pom!_ Po thought.

 _Me too. We just need to last until tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll have rescued us by then._ Pom patted Po’s paw. _Let’s just get as far away from where we landed as possible._

They stumbled on in the darkness, until they skidded to a halt at the top of a small cliff, the shallow surf gently rolling in on the sands below. Po was panting heavily, they weren’t built like Pom and couldn’t run as fast.

 _Rest,_ Pom thought. _And I’ll work out what to do next._

Po nodded, too exhausted to do anything else. Pom knew he needed to get Po some food, their type couldn’t go for long without food, whereas Pom’s type could go for a while, but then they would eat massive amounts. Looking over the edge of the cliff to the left and right, Pom saw a small light all on its own. Maybe that was a habitation and it would contain food they could eat. It was worth the risk. There weren’t any signs of pursuit so Pom could at least let Po catch their breath. Once Po had recovered enough, they would go and see what they could find.

~

Yuuri sat up in bed. “What’s that?” The crash had come from downstairs and sounded like an entire cupboard of pots and pans had fallen over. “Victor?” He reached out beside him in the darkness, but there was no one there.

“Shh! I’m going to investigate.” Victor replied quietly.

Yuuri’s eyes widened and he grabbed at the location of Victor’s voice, luckily snagging a hand. “ _Victor!_ ” He whispered.

“What did we decide earlier Yuuri, YOLO? Nothing happened earlier and that was far more exciting. Come on, something weird is going on and we could be in the middle of it.”

“We’re _ice skaters_ Victor, not paranormal investigators.”

“But we could be! Just for tonight.”

“What if it’s a burglar?”

“Yuuri, we’re international athletes, I don’t think a burglar is going to be a problem. That’s why I’ve picked up that statue of something that was on the table.”

“Wait a minute.” Yuuri untangled his legs from the sheet and stood up. He tightened his grip on Victor’s hand. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Moonlight was pouring into the front room of the house as they crept down the stairs allowing them to see a light coming from the kitchen. But it wasn’t the kitchen light and it was too steady for torchlight. There was another crash and a small cry as whatever it was in the kitchen knocked something over. Yuuri looked at Victor wondering if Victor’s fingers were as numb from pressure as Yuuri’s were becoming. Victor looked back and they both nodded and crept forward some more. There was another noise and then a voice.

“Pom!” The voice was angry and high pitched like a child.

“Po?” The second voice was sad and also had a child-like quality.

Yuuri pulled Victor to one side and said as quietly as he could into Victor’s ear. “What are children doing in the kitchen?”

Victor shrugged and whispered back, “I don’t know.”

Yuuri looked at the statue in Victor’s hand and then at Victor and tapped Victor’s hand. He wasn’t going to menace children with a ‘whatever-it-was’. Victor silently placed the statue on the floor behind them and let go of Yuuri’s hand. They both massaged feeling into their numbs fingers, grinning ruefully at each other as they did so.

Yuuri looked towards the kitchen, which had gone suspiciously quiet, and took a deep breath before he walked forward, Victor close behind.

The scene that greeted them was enough to make Yuuri’s jaw drop in horror. The light of the open refrigerator door was the source of the glow illuminating the kitchen. Yuuri couldn’t quite take in the extent of the mess as his gaze concentrated on the sight of a small boy, about the size of a young toddler, sitting in the middle of the floor. The boy was wearing a hat with floppy ears on. He seemed to be the one who had made the sad ‘Po’ noise because he was dripping wet and happily wiping his mittens on his face and then licking them dry. He was rather cute even if he was breaking and entering. Yuuri looked around trying to see the source of the other voice.

The contents of the fridge were now distributed all over the floor. One of the crashes, at least, had been the bottle of expensive champagne they were keeping to have on the last night. Luckily the bottle hadn’t broken, just popped it’s cork and rolled away. It was obviously what the small guy on the floor was covered in.

The other crash seemed to be a bottle of ketchup; judging from the spray of red gloop running up the wall and over the ceiling. But before he could see any more his vision was suddenly obscured by the contents of a bag of flour. Coughing and choking he backed away, trying in vain to clear the cloud from around him while getting into some fresher air.

There was an extremely angry “POM!” from one side of Yuuri.

“Got you!” Victor crowed triumphantly.

“Po? PO!”

“Ow!” Victor yelped.  As the flour cloud finally drifted to the floor, Yuuri saw Victor.

In his arms, he was holding another furious little boy who had bitten into Victor’s arm and wasn’t letting go. The cute little one Yuuri had seen was holding onto Victor’s leg and biting as hard as he could into Victor’s calf.

“Victor!” Yuuri ran to the rescue. He pulled the ‘Po’ one off Victor’s leg and made sure to hold him in a position where he couldn’t bite.

The little boy struggled with quite a surprising amount of strength for something his size and Yuuri wasn’t quite sure what to do. He could imagine calling Yuuko for advice. _Hi Yuuko, yes I’ve got this tiny powerful toddler in my arms who keeps trying to bite me. I don’t want to hurt him but I don’t know how to put him down without getting bitten._ Yuuri would be able to hear her laughing from the other side of the planet. He finally managed to free one hand while still keeping the wriggling Po from biting him. He pinned the boy’s arms to his side and turned him round to face himself. Yuuri immediately felt horrible. Tears were pouring down the little boy’s face and he was letting out little hiccups of fear.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Yuuri tried for the gentlest tone he could. “We’re not trying to hurt you, we just wondered what was going on in our house.” Yuuri placed the little boy on the ground and looked at Victor.

Victor had done the same as Yuuri. His little one was taller and thinner but had the same hat with ears as Yuuri’s Po. Victor’s little one though was also crying and looking at Po. Victor looked at Yuuri in horror, his face filled with remorse.

“Put them down together and we see about letting go.” They placed the boys next to each other and let them go, stepping back abruptly, not sure if they were going to be attacked a second time. The two children immediately hugged each other, making little noises as if they were communicating. Yuuri pulled up Victor’s arm and examined it. The damage wasn’t too bad, the skin had only been punctured in a couple of places, some antiseptic and a plaster would be fine.

“What are we going to do with them?” Victor asked. “It doesn’t seem like they speak any language we know.”

“I don’t know. How did they get here? Where are they from?” Yuuri wanted to know.

“Those lights in the forest earlier this evening, do you think?”

“We never found out what it was and it would take little things like this quite a while to negotiate the woods. They must have been frightened out of their wits,” Yuuri said. He picked a handy box of tissues off the worktop and crouched down to where the creatures were holding each other, he really needed to decide what to call them. He held the tissue box out to them. “Do you want to dry your faces off?”

They reacted with more wails and hugged each other tighter. “Do they not know what a tissue is for?” Victor asked. “From their clothes they look like normal, if a bit oddly dressed children.”

Yuuri thought and then pulled a tissue from the box, mimicked wiping his face with it and then held the tissue out to them.

They didn’t react quite so badly this time and after some chittering conversation the taller one looked at Yuuri, “Pom?”

Yuuri made sure his voice was low and reassuring, “It’s okay, we’re not trying to hurt you. You just surprised us, that’s all.” The little Po boy pushed at the Pom and waved his mittens in a ‘go on’ gesture. Pom nervously rubbed his hands together and walked up to Yuuri. Yuuri tried to stay still but not tense, it’s was like trying to tempt an animal to feed from your hand. Pom didn’t take the tissue, but put his hand on top of Yuuri’s. He stayed still for a while and they gave a big grin. “Pom!” He said decisively and took the tissue gently from Yuuri. He went quickly back to Po and gently wiped Po’s face with the tissue. They held a small conversation in their strange language and seemed to reach a decision. Po stood up and toddled over to Yuuri. As he placed the tissue in Yuuri’s hand to give it back he also made sure to touch Yuuri hand for a while and then he too gave an enormous grin. “Po!”

Yuuri looked up at Victor. “Do you have _any_ idea what’s going on?”

Victor shook his head. “Not a clue. They seem happy though.”

Yuuri watched as the little Po skipped back to Pom and hugged him around the middle. “Victor,” Yuuri said slowly, “Look at the one that goes Po. He’s got a tail.”

“It’s just a costu–it’s wagging.” Victor peered at the other small chil–anim–creatu–thing. “The Pom one has one too.” They both stared at the little creatures, then looked at each other and looked back at the...the whatever they were. “The ears?” Victor asked.

“I would assume real, and the little Po one, those aren’t mittens, they’re paws.” Yuuri slowly rose to his feet, trying not to scare them again. “With the lights in the forest earlier I can’t help wondering…”

“E.T.!” Victor was grinning his head off.

“Well I was going to say Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but you know, E.T. works much better.” Yuuri laughed. “Oh my god, really do you think they are aliens?”

“I am beginning to doubt that they’re human children Yuuri.”

“I have to agree with you. What the hell do we do?” They stood and stared at the little creatures in confusion for a while. Finally, the son of the onsen owner reared his head and made Yuuri feel guilty about the state the kitchen was in.

He got down on the floor again and patted his chest, “My name is Yuuri.” He then pointed to Victor, “and this is Victor. Yuuri.” Patting his chest again, “Victor” pointing to Victor. Po and Pom looked at each other.

“Po-chacco,” the little one said and the tall one went “Pompompurin.”

“That’s your names?” Victor said and he too crouched down. “Hello Pocha. Hello Pom.”

The two aliens were obviously still a bit frightened of Victor, after all, they had bitten him. Pom looked grim and was obviously psyching himself up, he eventually walked over to Victor and to Victor’s surprise rested his hand on Victor’s hand like Pocha had done with Yuuri. He stayed still for a minute and then grinned. He chittered at Pocha and then Victor gasped as he received a flood of emotions and images. Yuuri grasped him by the shoulder to steady him when it looked like Victor was going to fall over. The flood was quickly over and Victor blinked.

“They’re telepathic.”

“They’re what?”

Victor didn’t answer and instead looked at Pocha “Pocha? Yuuri?” He gestured at Yuuri and Pocha nodded its head seriously. He walked over to Yuuri on his short little legs and put his hand into Yuuri’s. Yuuri was grateful he was already on his knees on the floor because he too would have had trouble keeping his balance in the onslaught of images and emotions. Quick views of a beautiful planet, metal corridors, things that Yuuri couldn’t understand, something like scientific equipment, and other creatures very much like Pocha and Pom.

“I...wow!” Yuuri struggled to voice his thoughts. He looked at the aliens and then at the messy kitchen. “I need time to think about this. Can we clean up this mess before we talk about it?”

“That’s probably a good idea.” Victor got to his feet. “I wonder if they’ll help us?”

“Pocha? Pom?” Yuuri asked and they looked up. He rose to his feet and walked over to the sink finding the roll of paper towels underneath. He tore a couple off and wet them and then showed the aliens what he wanted to do.

“Well, they catch on quickly,” Victor noted as they leapt into action, energetically wiping away at the floor and anything that had flour on it. “I suppose we’d better do our share of the taller stuff.”

~

One sparkling kitchen later the two aliens were leaning up against each other dozing on the floor. Yuuri stifled a yawn. ”What’s the time?” He said peering at the clock on the wall. He was so tired he was having trouble getting his eyes to focus.

“Nearly morning, I think,” Victor said, he was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. He looked like he was trying to sleep standing up. He opened his eyes and looked down at the tired little creatures. “What shall we do with them?”

“There are several spare bedrooms, we could put them in one of those? And then go to bed ourselves?” Yuuri said hopefully.

“Good idea. Do you think they’ll bite if we pick them up?” Victor said with a rueful chuckle.

“Here goes nothing.” Yuuri carefully moved towards Po and touched him on the shoulder. He prodded the small alien until he stirred.

“Po?” He mumbled sleepily, Yuuri’s heart melted. He wondered how he was going to communicate and touched Po’s hand? Paw? Trying to transmit the right images and emotions while he asked.

“Po, we want to help you to sleep better. Can we pick you up and take you somewhere more comfortable?” Yuuri quickly took his hand away, it was far more difficult than he thought to try to stop his mind veering off at a tangent. Every time he thought about bed, his brain tried to insert the image of him and Victor in bed, either cuddling or making love, and that was not the sort of image he wanted to be sending to the small alien.

It seemed that he succeeded, to his relief, and a little “Po.” came out. The poor little thing was so tired. Yuuri swallowed and put his hands round Po’s chest, under his arms and lifted him up. Yuuri propped the little alien so that his face was over his shoulder like you would with a baby.

Victor watched Yuuri interact with the little Po creature and swallowed, replacing the child-sized creature with a human baby in his mind. Cute, with Yuuri’s tousled back hair and big brown eyes. Unfortunately, as soon as Pom realised that the warmth had gone from its side it stirred. “Po!” Its little voice was sleepy but worried.

Victor moved quickly and touched Pom’s hand, trying to do the same as Yuuri. Pom was more responsive and raised his arms to Victor.

“OK, they don’t seem to want to be separated so let’s just put them into bed together,” Victor said, making sure he stayed close to Yuuri and Po so as not to panic the little Pom in his arms. He certainly didn’t want to be bitten again. “Do you think they’re a couple? They look different to each other.”

“Who knows, Victor. They’re aliens, we’re assuming they have the same partnership system and biology as us. We haven’t got a clue what we’re dealing with really. Remember the film Gremlins?”

Victor gave Yuuri _a look._ “Thanks Yuuri, I really needed that image in my head right now.”

Yuuri chuckled. “Well we’ve failed two of the three don’ts already and nothing’s happened.”

“Yet,” Victor said mournfully. Yuuri grinned at him and winked.

~

They left the two sleeping peacefully cuddled up close together in the large bed in one of the guest bedrooms. They paused at the door and looked back into the room at the two heads poking out from underneath the covers.

“They are incredibly cute.” Victor looked at Yuuri, who looked back with his eyes wide open. Victor wondered and hoped that Yuuri was thinking along the same lines as him. They were retired now, maybe there was room in their lives for more than dogs.


	2. Confusing the FAIRIs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear...
> 
> Things to watch out for in this chapter: FAIRIs, excessive PDA, Roombas and Phichit (YAY!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy you liked the first chapter. Thank you for the kudos and comments!

The bed was a mess of tangled sheets and bodies in the morning. Victor woke first and resisted the urge to tease Yuuri awake with kisses. Easing himself off of Yuuri slowly, he disentangled his legs carefully, not wanting to wake his morning-grumpy husband. After struggling with the sheet for a bit, he eventually managed to lay beside but not on top of Yuuri.

The events of the previous night played themselves through his head and he chuckled quietly to himself. What a vivid dream. From the state of the bed, it looked like they had been wrestling instead of sleeping last night. Victor lay for a while quietly watching Yuuri, they had all the time in the world, there was no rush to be active. That would come soon enough when they went back to work. Victor would continue to coach Yuri and Yuuri would start finally using his degree in sports physiology.

The sun was much higher in the sky when Yuuri began to stir. Victor always enjoyed watching Yuuri wake up when he had time to stay in bed. Yuuri let out a little snore and closed his mouth before scrunching up his nose and bringing a hand up to rub at the end. He opened his glorious brown eyes, looked at Victor and groaned.

“Do you really have to lay there every morning and watch me until I wake up?” Yuuri complained in a slurring voice.

“But my Yuuri, you’re always beautiful in the morning,” Victor said this with complete sincerity and had said it more than once. He always got the same reaction.

Yuuri side-eyed him and shook his head slightly. “You’re impossible.” He couldn’t help a smile lifting a corner of his mouth and Victor moved in to kiss the smile.

Yuuri responded enthusiastically, pressing his body to Victor’s. They broke the kiss after a while.

“We should probably get up. I had the weirdest dream last night.”

“Oh? I had one too.” They both looked at each other.

“You first.” Victor broke the silence.

“OK, so we were woken up by a noise, and you were going to investigate and I came too,” Victor was nodding, “What?”

“It’s OK, carry on.”

“We went downstairs and were attacked by two little creatures who then turned out to be friendly aliens.” Yuuri stopped and looked at Victor’s face. “It wasn’t a dream was it.”

Victor shook his head. “I thought I’d had an extremely vivid dream too, until you just repeated it to me.” Victor looked at his arm which had a clear bite mark from a small mouth. “Definitely not a dream.”

They both had the same thought and looked at each other. “Shit!” Victor exclaimed. “They must have been awake for hours, what on earth have they been doing?”

They rolled out of bed, still slightly tangled in the sheets and landed on the floor with a thud, Victor scrambled to get rid of the sheet and off of Yuuri and they both pulled on whatever clothes came to hand, desperate to find out what chaos had happened in their absence.

Rushing out of the bedroom, Yuuri stopped and held Victor’s arm and looked at him seriously with a finger to his lips. Yuuri walked quietly to the room where they left the Po and Pom creatures last night, but as they suspected it was empty, just the disturbed sheets showed that someone had been in the bed.

“They must be downstairs,” Victor whispered.

“Or they’ve left,” Yuuri said. Victor felt a pang go through him at the thought that the cute creatures who had ruined their night might have left.

“Let’s find out.”

They walked down the stairs as quietly as possible, music was playing, but they then heard the noise of a gunshot and then a voice drawling, “What’s up doc?”

Victor nearly slipped on the stairs in his surprise. How on earth had they managed to find a Bugs Bunny cartoon to watch? He looked at Yuuri who had his hand over his mouth and was shaking in laughter.

“Looks like they’re still here then,” Yuuri whispered. He straightened up and grabbed Victor’s hand pulling him down the stairs to see what the Po and Pom were up to.

~

Po woke first in the daylight, hungry again. They looked around for a timepiece of some sorts. Po resolved that they would wear a wristband all the time on-board ship from now on. If they ever knocked against the wrong lever again, they would at least know how long it had been since their last meal. Food was so important and they needed it every 2 hours. They kept some with them all the time usually, but they were lost on an alien planet. Pochas never went to the planets they studied, their need for regular food too important to risk being away from the ship for so long. Poms were usually the ones who went down with Monkichis, as they were best suited to exploration.

Po tried to bury the terror deep down. They needed food. They didn’t want to wake Pom so they wriggled their way out of the large soft bed and slowly eased themselves backwards off it. It was high up and Po could only just put their paws on the top when they were on tiptoes on the floor. They slid the last bit and ended up with a soft thump on the floor, falling onto their bottom. They sat on the floor for a while upset and hurt, noticing the aches from the frantic running the previous day and trying not to get frustrated. Everything on this world was built for the large humans as they called themselves. Everything was far too big for little Pochas. They huffed to themself and got up. Right. At least this time they knew where the food was.

Their legs were stiff from all the running in the dark, and Po sat for a while at the top of the steps leading down to the floor below where the food was. The stairs were hard to negotiate and slippery. It was so humiliating having to descend bottom first on their face. They nearly fell twice. They had a rest at the bottom because their heart was pounding so much, but the room with all the food was calling to them, and they really needed to eat. After the stress they’d been through in the darkness Po needed to build up their strength again. Otherwise they would waste away. They’d seen the effects of food deprivation on other Pochas and it wasn’t pleasant. They shook themselves and set off to the food room with determination.

~

Pom sat up in a panic when they woke. Po wasn’t in bed! _PO!_ They thought as loudly as they could.

_Food! Got some!_

Was all the reply they got. Pom smiled, and rolling their eyes climbed out of the high bed. They stretched and took in their surroundings, there wasn’t any rush, and Pom knew that Po would be a while yet. The room they were in was nice and most important the door was open. They hadn’t been shut in. They could see large, no, huge plants outside the window. The room itself was sparsely decorated with some pictures on the walls and there were some shelves with objects on. Pom wandered over to the shelves and touched the objects. The objects were all different colours with some sort of writing on the side. They would have to ask what they were later.

The home was big. There were so many doors. He came to one that was ajar and looked through the crack. The two aliens were curled around each other, the silver-haired one, who Pom had bitten, laying nearly on top of the smaller black-haired one. They felt a little guilty about the bite, but they had been terrified and had to protect their Po. Pom wondered if these inhabitants were like Pos and Poms back on Aonir. The two types usually paired up together and made good life partners.

As Pom climbed down the stairs, their sense of curiosity was getting the better of them. They could feel themselves getting excited about everything they could learn from the humans about their culture and the planet, and couldn’t wait to talk to them. Pom was an explorer after all, this might be their only opportunity to talk to the humans directly.

They found Po in the room the humans called the kitchen once again sitting on the floor with the cooler door open. Unfortunately, no one had had the presence of mind to put food on the lower shelves so Po had dragged a seat over to the cooler and was sitting next to it, with a pile of food wrappings all around. Pom rushed over to Po and hugged them around the middle. _You found food. Are you feeling better?_

 _Yes, I can think clearly now. Would you like some?_ Po offered Pom an oval golden flat object and bit into the one he was holding. _These are really nice! They look like some sort of cooked plant. I wish I had my equipment._

Pom took the possible plant and nibbled on it. His eyes opened, it was surprisingly tasty. Especially after the ship diet that got a bit bland after a few months, even though he had had the opportunity to land on other planets, unlike Po. _The humans are still resting._ He told Po. _We’d better tidy up after we’ve finished eating and we need to talk about what we’re going to do._

Half an hour later they were no closer to a solution. All they could hope was that a rescue team would be sent to fetch them and in the meantime maybe they could find something they could use to make a communicator. They found a screen and some boxes and Po immediately started to find out how it worked and what it was for. Within a short while the screen had come to life and they’d found the controller that operated it.

~

As they got to the bottom of the stairs Yuuri coughed to attract the alien’s attention and two squeaks were heard from the sofa, before two little faces peaked over the top. They looked scared and Yuuri exchanged a worried glance with Victor and walked round to sit beside the Po and Pom. He held out a hand and instantly a small paw and a little hand were placed in his.

“They’re puzzled by the cartoon.“ Yuuri translated to Victor. “They don’t understand the humour, and it’s very violent.” Yuuri paused. “I have to admit that I’m a bit puzzled as to how to explain 1960’s American humour to an alien.”

Victor laughed, shrugged and held out his hands. “You’ve got me there Yuuri. What do they have for entertainment?”

Yuuri looked at Po and Pom, obviously asking the question. “They don’t know what I’m talking about. They relax by socializing and exploring new planets and making scientific discoveries. That _is_ their entertainment.”

“Wow!” Victor could understand that level of dedication but he remembered with a shudder that time before he met Yuuri, when it had become self-destructive. He settled down behind Yuuri on the sofa and put his arms around his husband, reassuring himself that those days were long gone.

Pom moved around the sofa and patted Victor’s knee. Victor smiled down at him and held out his hands to help Pom climb into his lap. Po had climbed into Yuuri’s lap and when Yuuri shuffled round to be able to see Victor clearly his jaw dropped. Victor gasped too and bit his lip at the sight of Yuuri with a small, incredibly cute, lookalike sitting in his lap. They even had similar glasses.

“Can you tell us how we can get you home?” Victor asked, trying to focus on the important problem.

 _A rescue party should be sent for us, but we should try to build a communicator or a Tocato._ Po said thoughtfully.

“I heard that too,” Victor said.

 _Yes, we can communicate between all of us this way._ Pom’s tone was smug. Victor looked down at the little alien who looked as smug as he sounded.

Yuuri coughed and then asked, “What’s a Tocato?”

 _It’s a device to help us when we explore, a transport relay and for our personal protection. We need to look at your electronics to see if they will be of any use._ Pom replied.

“OK, we may be able to find something.” Victor paused and looked at Yuuri and the little Po again. “Can I ask you something?”

_Of course._

Victor blushed slightly, he felt ridiculous, “I can’t help noticing that Po and Yuuri have similar glasses, and even look slightly the same.”

“You and Pom too, Victor,” Yuuri added.

Victor instantly looked down at Pom who looked back up at him seriously with clear blue eyes. Victor thought he heard Yuuri give a muffled groan.

 _This will sound strange, but the universe is full of amazing coincidences. This is probably just one of them. For instance, your glasses, Yuuri, are to aid your vision, whereas my oculars are to aid with analysis and have technology built in to help with analysing chemicals. It was how I knew which food stuffs were safe to eat in your cooling machine._ Po explained logically.

_We came across a planet once that was entirely edible for Aonir; even the planet itself. The universe is very big and strange._

Victor glanced up to see how Yuuri was taking this amazing conversation to see that Yuuri’s eyes were round with surprise.

“What’s Aonir?” Yuuri asked.

 _We are the Aonir. Like you call yourselves humans._ Po replied.

 _It is our turn to ask a question._ Pom stated. Victor just nodded mutely, still trying to get the image of Yuuri and a child on Yuuri’s lap out of his head. _Why do you keep thinking of a small human version of Po sitting on Yuuri’s lap?_

Yuuri coughed wildly and Victor’s thoughts came to a grinding halt, jumbling over each other like a car pile-up. He could feel himself blushing fierily and his mouth flapped uselessly for a second or two before he untangled his thoughts.

“I...I…” He looked at Yuuri helplessly and melted at the look of love being returned to him. Maybe Yuuri wouldn’t be opposed to the idea? He took a deep breath. “I can’t help imagining a child of our own. We’ve both been very busy and having children hasn’t been possible, but now that we’re both retired maybe it’s something I’d like to think about.” Victor realised that he was talking to Yuuri as much as to Pom. “Do…” He dragged his gaze back down to Pom, “do Aonir not have children?”

_Aonir create the types that are needed; although we have observed other life forms needing to procreate and have a period of adjustment._

Victor and Yuuri looked at each other with wide eyes. “So...you don’t need to grow up? And what do you mean by types?” Yuuri asked.

 _There are different types of Aonir and they each specialise in different things._ Po replied. _Po types are engineers and skilled scientists. Pom types are explorers and diplomats. Although we can bond with any type, we tend to team up with compatible types for the work that needs doing. I am Pom’s bondmate, but I work with Coro. Pom works with Monkichi when off the ship._

“You’re married?!” Victor looked between the two aliens.

_It isn’t the same but I suppose it’s close enough. I need to ask if it is acceptable if I find some food._

Pom quickly explained how Pochas needed to eat every two hours, but Poms were able to go much longer between meals. Victor grinned and side-eyed Yuuri whose jaw dropped and he swatted Victor on the arm. Po and Pom slid off their laps shaking their heads and walked towards the kitchen.

“I like Katsudon okay! We should cook that for lunch. I had been planning to treat you to your favourite meal and I’ve got all the ingredients. But I’m not sure if I want to cook it now.” Yuuri huffed.

“I’m sorry my love, your love for Katsudon is only eclipsed by my love for your...you.” Victor quickly changed what he was going to say after Yuuri glared at him, opened his arms wide and slid off the sofa onto his knees. He clasped his hands together and pronounced. “I love you, Yuuri. And your Katsudon!” Yuuri looked down at Victor and bit his lip. He let out a huff and stood up to walk to the kitchen after the Aonir. “Yuuri!”

Po pronounced that all the ingredients laid out before them were safe for them to eat and they all set to work.

They decided that the polite thing to do would be to all sit on the floor as Po and Pom couldn’t easily sit at the table and it was obvious that Po had to visibly restrain themself from diving into the bowl in front of them.

Victor stopped eating when he saw the rate the food was disappearing in front of Po, he glanced at Pom who was watching Po with a small smile on their face. He then glanced at Yuuri and had to bite his lip at the expression of foodie bliss on Yuuri’s face. His heart skipped a beat and there was a pang in his chest. He clutched at his shirt; his life had been so empty and boring before Yuuri.

~

They’d just finished clearing up lunch when a loud banging from the front door reverberated through the house. Everyone jumped and Victor and Yuuri glanced at each other, puzzled. They weren’t expecting anyone. Luckily they were all in the kitchen at the back of the house tidying up after lunch, so hopefully no one had seen Po and Pom. Yuuri waved Victor out to answer the door and encouraged the aliens into a cupboard, promising to tell them immediately when it was safe to come out. They both knew that Victor was better at putting a public face on and Yuuri couldn’t lie for shit. Victor dried his hands off on a towel as he walked towards the door, keeping it in one hand to show that he’d been interrupted as he opened it.

He raised one eyebrow as haughtily as he was able to when he found a grim-faced trio in black suits at the door.

“Good Afternoon, Sir.” The shorter woman with blonde hair tightly scraped back into a bun stepped forward and took off her sunglasses, presenting an ID to Victor. Victor read the details while trying to keep a straight face. Who did these guys think they were - Men In Black?  “I’m Dr Fisher and these are Agents St. Clair and Garcia.” she said pointing to the other people in turn, a tall dark skinned woman with short black braids and a handsome tanned bearded man, both with dark sunglasses as well. “We are from the Foundation for Alien Intervention and Rescue International and we believe that there was an incident here last night. May we come in? We’d like to ask you if you saw anything.”

Victor mentally crossed his fingers that Yuuri had managed to get the little guys safely hidden and waved a hand. “Please come in Dr Fisher. Can I get you anything to drink? We did actually see something last night.”

“We?”

“Yes, my husband and I.” Victor smiled at the statement; he still took so much joy from that simple phrase even after all this time. “We were just cleaning up from lunch. Let me go and get him.” Victor threw the towel over his shoulder and waved a hand at the seats in the lounge area. “Please take a seat.”

When Victor walked back into the kitchen Yuuri was drying dishes, but as soon as their eyes met, Victor could tell that Yuuri was almost vibrating with nerves. He winked at Yuuri and said, “Yuuri, we have visitors from FAIRI.”

“From who?” Yuuri’s jaw dropped.

“The Foundation for Alien Intervention and Rescue International.” Victor’s eyes were twinkling with mischief, “they’re asking if we saw anything last night. I said we did and that we’d tell them all about it.”

A worried expression crept across Yuuri’s face again. Victor stepped up to his husband, pulled him into his arms and whispered into his ear. “Hey. We just tell the truth. We don’t have to talk about last night. Pretend you’re embarrassed about telling them about the amazing sex life we have.”

“Victor!” Yuuri whispered furiously back, burying his face in Victor’s shoulder.

“Why not? It’s true isn’t it?” Victor turned his face and kissed the side of Yuuri’s neck. He allowed his nose to nuzzle into Yuuri and slowly moved his mouth up to below Yuuri’s ear, Yuuri let out a little gasp and pressed in closer to Victor’s body. They stayed together until they were interrupted by a cough from the doorway.

They jumped apart and turned. “I’m sorry.” Dr Fisher’s face was slightly red in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but you were taking a while and I was wondering if anything was wrong?”

Even Victor had a slight blush across his cheeks and he grinned as he noticed Yuuri surreptitiously trying to adjust his jeans, but decided that this was an excellent explanation for any nervousness Yuuri would display and it may also hurry the nosy agents out of the house. “It’s no problem, sometimes we forget that we’re supposed to be an old married couple and we get carried away.” He hugged Yuuri closer, noticing the agent becoming uncomfortable with his public display. _Good._

They arranged themselves comfortably back in the front room with the agents sitting on one sofa, facing Yuuri and Victor on the other. In Victor’s case, comfortable meant that Yuuri was virtually on his lap. He could tell that the three FAIRIs (he had to bite his lip every time he thought that) were uncomfortable with such obvious displays and resolved to see how far he could push it without making Yuuri uncomfortable before they left. Although it seemed that Yuuri had realised the same thing because he wasn’t objecting to Victor’s clinginess in public as much as he usually would.

“So what can we tell you about last night? I’m afraid we didn’t see much...but really? Aliens?”

“Anything you can tell us would be helpful Mr…?” The woman didn’t answer Victor’s question, pausing and waiting for a reply.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I’m Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov and this is my husband Yuuri.”

The woman on the left, Agent St. Clair, Victor remembered, gave a squeak. “ _The_ Victor Nikiforov?”

“Well unless you’re talking about the Hockey player who died over thirty years ago then I guess, yes, that would be me.”

“I’m such a fan! I thought I recognised you and your husband, but I didn’t want to say anything in case I was wrong.” The woman gushed. “My niece is a huge fan too. Oh My God! I love your skating so much! Please can I have your autographs?”

Dr Fisher frowned across at the other woman, “Jessica, please!”

“I’m sorry.”

Victor smiled. Great, even more distraction would put them off guard. Now they knew they were dealing with celebrities too. “It’s not a problem, remind us on your way out and we’ll give you one for your niece as well.” Jessica beamed at this and then schooled her face at another sharp frown from the Doctor.

“ _If_ we can continue...please tell us anything you can about last night. We’re trying to piece together what happened.” She pulled a tablet from her bag and tapped on it. “You don’t mind if I record the conversation do you?”

Victor frowned and sat forward a little. “Let’s backtrack a bit. What is this organisation you claim to be from? I’d also like some reassurance that this isn’t some stunt by the press to get an underhand interview from us. We have just retired and are enjoying a holiday. We wanted to get away from all the attention.”

“It’s OK Victor. I think we can trust them.” Yuuri smiled at the trio and Victor could see them visibly relax slightly. “I think the press would have come up with a better story to trick us with than aliens and we did see something strange last night.” Victor made it obvious that he was still unhappy but internally praised Yuuri. So, they were going to play good celebrity, bad celebrity with Yuuri being the good cooperative one and Victor putting them in awkward positions. He mentally rubbed his hands together. This was fun!

Dr Fisher nodded, “Please tell us what you saw.”

“Well, we were out on the verandah yesterday evening having a drink–” Yuuri began.

Victor smirked and caressed Yuuri’s thigh as obviously as he could, “–and cuddling.”

Yuuri coughed and removed Victor’s hand. He turned to glare at Victor, which turned into a smoulder when he saw Victor’s pout. “Er, yes, and that.” He coughed again and turned back to the slightly embarrassed trio on the other seats. “So, er, erm…” Victor had started to work his other hand under Yuuri’s shirt.

“You were on the veranda…” Dr Fisher prompted.

“Yes..yes we got up to dance together. We’re professional skaters; I love dancing and it was so beautiful, with the sea and the sunset...” Yuuri rambled on distractedly about the sunset and then Victor’s offer of a dance, which was interrupted by the strange lights. Victor noticed with glee that Dr Fisher was getting frustrated, the man was bored stiff and Jessica was absorbing every moment with Yuuri with glee. She was a real fan - the only blot in the plan, because she would have to be pried away from the house.

Yuuri described in excruciating detail the climb up the hill and the lights, the curiosity when the show was over and then the arrival of the helicopters. “We thought that maybe we weren’t supposed to be there so we came back to the house. We finally managed to get to sleep and woke up late this morning. We just finished having lunch.”

“Thank you Mr Katsuki. An–”

“Katsuki-Nikiforov please.” Yuuri corrected.

“Sorry, so you didn’t see any ‘ _people_ ’ on your way up or back down the hill.” Dr Fisher asked. To Victor’s secret delight, Dr Fisher was, by now, extremely exasperated and rather bored. Victor admired Yuuri’s skill. If it had been anyone other than Yuuri telling that tale, Victor would have probably committed murder. He thought he saw the man jerk awake when Dr Fisher spoke and he was pretty sure that Jessica hadn’t heard a word and was mesmerised by Yuuri’s voice and being in the presence of two of her skating gods. So as soon as they could get rid of Dr Fisher they were in the clear.

“No, we saw nothing,” Yuuri paused and frowned. “I already told you that.”

“Well. Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.” She closed down her tablet and stood up.

If Victor hadn’t wanted to get rid of them so much he would have stayed cuddling Yuuri, but he forced himself to remove his hand from the inside of Yuuri’s shirt and levered his other off Yuuri’s thigh with great effort.

“It’s been a pleasure.” He said, standing up and offering them his hand. Now that they were leaving he could afford to be gracious.

“Let me get those autographs you asked for.” Yuuri moved off the sofa and went upstairs; they always took a few signed photographs with them wherever they went these days, it just made life easier. Victor still had to occasionally show Yuuri the figures on the printings to prove that more people wanted Yuuri’s autograph these days than Victor’s.

They shook hands and Victor ushered them to the door, reining in the urge to push them out.

“Thank you,” Dr Fisher said as she put her sunglasses back on. “It’s a refreshing change to see a couple so happy together. I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.” She smiled and then turned to walk towards the car.

Victor couldn’t help raising his eyebrows slightly and smiling. Yuuri clattered down the stairs before he could reply and handed out the autographs, leaning into Victor as they waved the agents off.

“Thank the gods that’s over.” He rested his head on Victor’s shoulder.

Victor rested a hand on the back of Yuuri’s neck and hummed his agreement, watching outside carefully. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that Dr Fisher bought Yuuri’s incredibly boring tale, and it felt like forever before the car started up and drove away down the rough track.

They stayed quietly together for a while, until noises from the kitchen made them both stiffen. For a few minutes they’d forgotten about the two little problems hidden at the back of the house.

~

Po and Pom sat quietly in the cupboard for a few minutes after Yuuri had shut the door. Pom leaned their head back against the wall and gazed distractedly around the small space. The humans seemed to be so nervous about them being discovered and when the banging had sounded through the house they’d panicked and only vaguely explained to Po and Pom what they were worried about and that the two Aonir needed to stay extremely quiet. Pom felt Po shaking beside them and wrapped their arms around them.

_We have to trust them Po._

_I know, I just saw in Yuuri’s mind what he was scared about and it frightened me._

_Show me._

_But you’ll get scared too._

_No I won’t, I’ve faced down the scariest aliens before now, these seem to be mild compared to the Altarian Tri-fanged Boojum. I told you about that expedition, didn’t I?_

_No, you can tell me now._

_OK_

Pom launched into a retelling of the exciting time they had when they landed on Altair and Monkichi and Pom had stumbled across the lair of the beast. The way he told it was so funny and Po was giggling quietly at the end when Pom described how they had tamed the beast with some Tori fruit and a dance that Monkichi decided to improvise on the spot.

_But Pom, these humans didn’t do nice things to the aliens they found on the planet._

_But our ones seem nice. We’ll ask them after the other humans have gone._

They sat silently for another while, Pom could tell that Po had dozed off against them and they were comforted. Poms were cuddly by nature and always wanted to be touching another Aonir, but Pos were more self-contained and usually lacking in emotion apart from when they were hungry. It had taken a long time for Pom to get through to Po and convince them that they were serious about a life partnership contract.

Pom realised that Po would be hungry as soon as they woke up. They looked around at the shelves lining two walls of the small room. Silently cursing the size of these humans Pom carefully got up without disturbing Po and walked over to get a closer look.  Hopefully there would be food. Everything was in boxes, some covered in dust. Pom assumed, well at least hoped, that those boxes didn’t contain fresh food. They doubted that the humans were clever enough to develop everlasting fresh food yet. They would have to start opening some of the packets and sniffing the contents.

A short while after, Pom was surrounded by scraps of plastic, open plastic bags and discarded boxes. They had eventually found something that smelled sweet and was just about to unwrap it when they heard Po.

_I’m hungry? Did you find food Pom?_

_I think so? Here why don’t you try one?_ Pom held out one of the unwrapped bulbous ended sticks to Po. _It smells sweet._

Po took it gingerly and sniffed it. _Smells nice._ He popped it into his mouth and then his whole face lit up and his ears went stiff. _Delicious Pom!!! Thank you._

They were silent for a while as they each sucked on a sweet and then Po asked. _What are you sitting on?_

_It’s something that uses electricity. Let’s have a look._

Po’s eyes lit up, there was nothing they liked more than a puzzle or solving how alien gadgets work, Pom’s curiosity was more about exploring and discovering new things than in trying to discover how things worked. Pom got off the low round device they were sitting on and pulled at it to try to see underneath. It was heavy but they both managed to turn it over with some effort. There were some small wheels and a spinning brush.

 _It’s a cleaner._ Po said. _Look, the wheels direct it and the brush picks up the dirt. I bet I can make it work better. Are there any tools in here?_

After a little more searching which added to the pile of boxes on the floor they found some gadgets that looked like maintenance tools. Po grabbed them enthusiastically and after a short struggle with the large, human sized handles, got to work.

 _There!_  They said triumphantly a few minutes later. _It will work much better now. It should go much faster._ Their face turned down and they looked miserable. _If I had my proper tools I could make it perfect._

Pom rubbed Po on the shoulder. _You’re amazing. Let’s try it out!_

 _But they said we needed to be quiet._ Po reminded Pom.

 _I think I heard the others leaving while you were working. Come on, where’s the on switch._ Pom squeezed their fists together in excitement and ignored Po rolling their eyes.

They levered the cleaner over again until the shiny smooth surface (that was perfect for sitting on, but Pom was trying to be good) was facing up. Po reached over and pressed the big round button in the middle. The machine whirred for a second before racing off straight into the shelves and knocking over a tall stick leaning in the corner. Pom raced over to try to turn the machine off, but before they could get to the button the machine reversed direction and knocked their legs out from under them. At that moment the cupboard door opened and Pom yelled as the cleaner shot out of the cupboard through the legs of the human Victor and off into the rest of the house. A plaintive _Pom!_ echoed after him.

~

Yuuri was just stepping into the kitchen when Victor opened the cupboard door. He only just managed to jump out of the way as the Roomba with a screaming Pom on top of it zoomed underneath him. Yuuri had never seen a Roomba move so fast. Luckily, and giving thanks to all the gaming he’d done in the past, Yuuri was quick enough to be able to pluck Pom off the top of the Roomba as it shot past him. He carefully placed the little alien on the ground. Pom seemed to be slightly shaken but able to stand. Within a few seconds Pom was grinning madly and raced back into the cupboard where Po sitting with a screwdriver in their paw. Pom chittered madly at Po and hugged them.

“So...what the hell just happened?” Yuuri asked, turning to watch the Roomba zoom around the living area at a speed that was hard to follow.

Victor levelled a look at the two aliens, looked back at Yuuri and shrugged. “I guess they were bored? They seem to know quite a bit about electronics at any rate.”

“It isn’t going to be easy to keep them a secret if they get bored so easily. We need to find a way to get them home.” Yuuri said crouching down and beckoning them over. “Hey! Guys? Can you come over for a minute, we need to talk.”

Pom pulled Po up by the hand and forced a, what looked like, very embarrassed Po over to Victor and Yuuri who were crouching on the floor. Pom pushed at Yuuri until he was sitting and then pulled Po and sat him down on Yuuri’s lap, Pom then walked over to Victor, who sat as well so that Pom could climb onto his lap. Yuuri bit his lip. These two were seriously adorable. The aliens both placed a hand or paw on the hands of the humans.

Po started in a very contrite mental tone. _I apologise, I didn’t mean to make the cleaning machine so scary, I just wanted to make it better._

“It’s fine, don’t worry, but please can you change it back as it’s not ours. We’re only living here,” Yuuri waved his other arm around the room. “while we have a holiday.”

 _Of course I can, but you’ll need to catch it._ Po’s tone was mischievous and Yuuri looked down to see a little smile on Po’s face.

Yuuri listened to the Roomba zooming around the room. “Hopefully the battery will run down soon.” Yuuri’s heart sank as the little alien in his lap began to giggle.

_I may have changed the power supply. It won’t need to be given more power to work._

Victor spluttered and coughed as he tried not to laugh. “Looks like you’re Roomba-hunting Yuuri!”

“Oh gods!” Yuuri slowly shook his head. “But we never got round to talking about getting you home before we were interrupted.”

Po immediately stopped giggling and became serious. _We do need to go home Pom._

 _Yes, we should build a communicator so we can call the ship back._ Pom nodded seriously.

“So what do you need to build a communicator?” Yuuri asked.

Po reeled off a long list of technical terms that obviously didn’t translate and Yuuri and Victor looked at each other in bemusement.

“I think we need it more basic than that. Can you make it from anything in the house? We don’t mind if you have to take things apart - we can always buy the house a new one of whatever you destroy.” Victor suggested.

Po looked incredibly offended at Victor’s suggestion and frowned at him through his oculars. _I do not destroy things! I take them apart – carefully._

Yuuri bit his lip again and tried to hide his thoughts, but it was too late. Po looked up at him seriously. _I am not a youngster and you may think I’m *cute* but I am ninety years old and Pom is only a little older. How old are you?_

Yuuri raised his eyebrows and his jaw dropped. He went extremely red and dropped his eyes, ashamed at jumping to an incorrect conclusion. “I apologise, Po. I’m 29 years old.”

_It’s all right. You weren’t to know._

_But my Po *is* extremely cute._

Po immediately covered his face with his paws. _Pom!_

Victor and Yuuri looked at each other and burst out laughing.

~

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening was spent searching around the house for electronic gadgets that Po could take apart and reassemble if they didn’t contain what they needed, but Po was having enormous trouble with the human sized tools, even with Yuuri and Victor helping to take the gadgets apart. Eventually they cracked and with a cry of frustration threw the screwdriver they were currently trying to wield to the floor.

“I have an idea,” Yuuri said and got up to fetch the laptop. Po had sulked when both Victor and Yuuri had absolutely refused to allow Po to take apart the laptop or their mobile phones. They only begrudgingly came out of their funk when Victor found an old, broken mobile phone stashed in a draw in the living area. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the specialised tools required to take it apart, which reduced them to a miserable puddle again. It took the combined efforts of Pom and Victor to even begin to cheer them up.

“I’m going to call Phichit. I know you’re suspicious that those FAIRI people didn’t think we were telling the truth, Victor. So if I video call Phichit, he can do the searching for the bits we need and get them shipped to a shop on the island. That way no one will know what the package contains.”

Yuuri’s statement made them all go silent for a moment and then Victor said, “I don’t know the first thing about technology, but if you think we’re being monitored then how will that be safe?”

“You’ll see.” Yuuri sat down and making sure that Victor and the two aliens wouldn’t be visible from the camera, opened the laptop.

~

“Yuuri! Hi! I thought you were going incommunicado for your holiday?” Phichit’s cheerful voice rang out.

“We are, but something’s come up. Can you call me back on a secure connection?” Yuuri smiled as Phichit’s face lit up.

“Oh ho! Colour me curious! Give me five minutes to set it up.” Phichit replied.

Victor was looking at Yuuri quizzically, so Yuuri quickly explained. “Phichit knew someone at college who used to be a bit of a vigilante and hunted nasties on the dark web, we both learned quite a bit. If Phichit doesn’t know how to get it to us safely then his friend will. We just need to tell him what we need.”

“Po, can you tell me what you need?” Yuuri said, coming over to them. He had to take a breath at the sight of Victor with Pom and Po cuddling in his lap. Temporarily substituting the small aliens for small children, one with Yuuri’s dark hair and one with Victor’s silver. Victor would make a wonderful father. Yuuri blinked, trying to clear the vision and the emotions it stirred within him. He took Po’s paw, not knowing how they were going to communicate what was needed. He needn’t have worried.

 _I need my size tools so I can take the things apart._ Po said firmly. _I can build a communicator from what you have here, but we need to go to the hill to operate it and it will need a power supply, so I need a power pack that can be moved up the hill._ Po looked hopeful. _If your friend can get me the tools, and a good enough power supply then we can go home._

“So something like a car battery?” Yuuri asked.

 _Show me._ Po demanded.

“I’ll take Po out to the car and show him, while you wait for Phichit to call back,” Victor said standing up.

Yuuri fidgeted nervously until the laptop chimed and immediately accepted the call.

“Any luck?” He said as soon as the call connected.

“Of course,” Phichit sounded smug and then placed his hand on his chest and looked offended. “Yuuri! How dare you imply that I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Yuuri chuckled. “I humbly beg your forgiveness, oh great Senpai, master of the internet.”

“Too right. Now to business. What’s so important that you needed a secure line? Spill!” Phichit rubbed his hands together in glee.

Yuuri wiped at his face, “OK, so you’re not going to believe this, and it can’t go any further than you and me, Phichit. You have to promise me that nothing will get out, at all.”

“Wow, Yuuri. That sounds serious. OK, I promise. But I’m also really curious. Bear in mind Yuuri that whoever you’re hiding from will know you’ve accepted a secure call.” Phichit was extremely serious now.

“I know. It’s why I didn’t want to make the call myself, it may be a little less suspicious if I receive one rather than make one.”

Phichit shook his head. “Your logic astounds me Yuuri and not in a good way.”

Yuuri grinned; he never had bothered to listen to Ketty’s lectures on the Internet as much as he should have beyond the basics, whereas Phichit had joined in enthusiastically. Yuuri took a breath, time to get serious.

“We had an _incident_ a few days ago and now we need some help collecting some small tools to take apart mobile phones and some other bits. We’re probably being monitored by the FAIRIs as well.” Yuuri smirked as he said this, because he knew it would wind Phichit up.

Phichit’s jaw dropped, just as Yuuri wanted. “Say that again, and say it so it makes sense this time. What do you mean _incident_ and who the hell are the FAIRIs? If this is some sort of joke…?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. Last night–” Yuuri shook his head, he couldn’t quite believe that it was only last night.

“Yes? I swear to all I hold sacred Yuuri you know just how to wind me up.”

“No, no, that time I wasn’t, I swear. I’m just having a hard time accepting it myself.” Yuuri pushed his hands out and waved them around trying to calm Phichit down. “Ok, so last night Victor and I were out on the deck and we saw strange lights in the sky. Victor wanted to investigate so we climbed the hill, but there was nothing there and then all these helicopters came over and so we came back down and went to bed.”

“Oh Yuuri.” Phichit shook his head again and put his hands over his eyes.

“What?”

Phichit just waved with one hand for Yuuri to go on, sighing deeply.

“We were woken up in the night by a noise in the kitchen. And...and...well.” Yuuri hesitated.

“Sheesh Yuuri, it’s like pulling teeth. Tell me! Because at the moment I’m thinking tentacle monsters and remembering some of those fics we used to read at university.”

“OK, OK. We found, in the kitchen, well, Victor got attacked and bitten and they were covered in champagne and incredibly cute.” Yuuri heard a small huff from behind him. “Sorry, not cute.” He rubbed his forehead.

“You’re still not making _any_ sense! Is Victor there?”

“Hello Phichit.” Victor’s cheerful voice came over Yuuri’s shoulder as he leaned on the back of the sofa looking at Phichit. Yuuri felt a hand on his shoulder and Victor continued for him. “Basically we met some new friends, and in order to get them home, we need a few tools and bits and pieces that we can’t get in the house. We also seem to have attracted the attention of an organisation called FAIRI, The Foundation for Alien Intervention and Rescue International. Now we aren’t sure if these are good guys or bad guys, but we’re not really willing to risk it either way. We need you to get the tools and order them to be delivered to a shop in the local town so that they aren’t suspicious.”

Phichit looked from Victor to Yuuri and back and forth several times before he finally closed his mouth. “Holy cow! Aliens!! Oh. My. God.”

“Phichit.” Yuuri groaned. “Look we can tell you all about it, but we need to get those tools ordered really quickly before these FAIRIs come back.”

Yuuri realised that Phichit wasn’t paying him any attention but was focused on a point to his left with his mouth open. He turned to see that Po had climbed up onto the sofa and was gazing at the screen with fascination from beside Yuuri.

A small paw touched Yuuri’s hand. _Your friend seems nice. You’re using primitive communication by wire and radio waves. I could do much better._ The mental tone was smug.

“They said that you seem nice and that they could make communications much better.” Yuuri translated.

Phichit’s eyes widened again as he looked over Po’s head, watching Victor lift Pom up onto the back of the sofa.

“They were pulling on my trouser leg, and wanted to join in too,” Victor said with a shrug.

“Phichit, meet Po and Pom,” Yuuri said indicating both aliens in turn.

Phichit’s mouth was still open, but he managed to collect himself enough to wave distractedly and say “Hi.”

Yuuri smiled to see Phichit’s obvious floundering, considering that he still couldn’t quite believe it himself. Details could wait for later though. “So, do you think you can do what Victor said?”

“Phichit?” Yuuri prompted after a few seconds of silence.

“Wha–? Oh! Yes, that’s definitely possible.” Phichit shook his head. “When these guys are home you two are going to get yourselves over here and tell me the entire story, not leaving anything out. If you don’t–” Phichit paused and an evil grin grew over his face. “–There’s that video of the both of you at your wedding that I promised not to post on Instagram…”

“You wouldn’t!” Yuuri gasped.

“Try me.” And Phichit’s voice promised all sorts of retribution. “I need to know everything. But first, let’s get these little guys home.” Yuuri heard the clicking of keys as Phichit got down to business.


	3. Phoning Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things to look out for in this chapter - more FAIRI shenanigans, the tiniest, teeniest bit of angst, more fluff, fangirling agent Jessica, Victor squeaks because of cuteness overload, more Katsudon and we say goodbye to the Aonir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said there was no angst and my brain forgot and I had to spend 3 months removing the angst *sweats* so there is no angst, apart from one little, tiny part of a scene, the tiniest of angst where Victor may be threatened with a gun, but nothing happens, NOTHING! Just run of the mill normal stuff where you have FAIRI agents and aliens in one room *sweats*
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has supported me so much and I'm so sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter out. My new job has sucked my creativity dry.

_TOP SECRET_

_Reports of Alien activity on island of St Lucia_

_May 22nd 21:23_

_Lights reported in sky over hills near Soufriere. Dispatched helicopter Alpha 22 to investigate. Agents Fisher, St. Clair and Garcia were sent in with Alpha 22 to investigate further. No suspicious activity reported on hill where lights were seen. Alpha 22 recalled to home and agents left on island for one week to report back._

_~_

_Top Secret_

_Report of Agent Dominique Fisher_

_May 23rd 18:00_

_We investigated the site of the strange lights and observed two sets of unusual tracks in the area. One obviously a pair of humans, coming from the bottom of the hill and returning the same way, leading to a large holiday home on the beach. One set was small with one animal paw print, and one child size shoe print. We could not see these prints arriving at the site, only leaving._

_We interviewed Mr & Mr Katsuki-Nikiforov who happened to be staying in a holiday home not far from the site of the activity. This is the world famous ice skating pair, and we proceeded with politeness and caution. They admitted to seeing the lights and walking up the hill. They said that when the helicopters arrived they made their way back down the hill, having seen nothing. Although at first their actions were unsuspicious and normal, the story told by Mr Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov of the events of the night and the following morning seemed to be deliberately constructed. Agent St. Clair asked for autographs and we departed. _

_I authorised Agent Garcia to monitor any communications from the house and Agent St Clair to run a surveillance sweep on the house later that evening to see if anything suspicious could be found._

_Top Secret_

_Report of Agent Jessica St Clair_

_May 23rd 22:30_

_Agent Fisher lead the interview and I observed from the background. Mr Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov seemed relaxed and answered the door wearing a towel over his shoulder, corroborating his story of just finishing tidying up the lunch. He showed us to a seat and went to fetch his husband. There was a short discussion in the kitchen that we couldn't overhear. Mr Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov then appeared and told us the events of last night as detailed above. The couple seemed to be slightly on edge and I could tell they were extremely glad to see us go._

_Later that evening I was authorised to do a surveillance sweep of the property to see if there was anything suspicious. On closer investigation the same set of small prints, one pair of paw prints and a child-sized shoe print, were observed leading to the house from along the shoreline. On following them back I was able to trace them back to the landing site._

_It was dark when I returned and I observed the pair dancing in the lounge. They seemed to be talking to someone sitting on the sofa but I could not get a clear view of who it was through the windows. I remained as long as I could and eventually the Katsuki-Nikiforovs went upstairs. They appeared to be carrying a pair of small children over their shoulders. We did not meet any children in the house earlier - where did they come from? I returned to the guest house._

_Top Secret_

_Report of Agent Daniel Garcia_

_May 23rd 23:00_

_Agent Fisher lead the interview and I observed from the background. Mr & Mr Katsuki-Nikiforov seemed to be friendly and I have nothing to add to the reports of Agents Fisher and St Clair. _

_The Katsuki-Nikiforovs only made one voice call over internet to Thailand. It should be noted that Mr Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforovs long term friend Phichit Chulanont lives in Thailand. A short while after they received a return call over a VPN, source unknown. Why should someone on holiday receive an encrypted call over VPN? After the VPN call I listened to the facetime call (recording attached). In the call Mr Katsuki-Nikiforov was vague and requested that Mr Chulanont call him back on a secure line. He gave no further information on the subject matter._

_~_

Yuuri could barely concentrate as he was brushing his teeth that evening. His eyes kept closing involuntarily. He couldn't believe that it was only just that afternoon when they'd talked to Phichit on the video call. After the call had finished, Po and Victor had reported, to everyone's great disappointment, that the car battery wasn't powerful enough. In the ensuing silence, Po and Pom had asked, or rather insisted on watching all the videos of Victor and Yuuri's skating routines. Yes, every single one. It turned out that the Aonir had never seen ice skating before. Their home planet had no axial tilt and the permanent winter zones were too cold for the warmth loving Aonirs to even think about inventing winter sports.

After that they wanted to see them dance Stammi Vicino together, so Victor and Yuuri pushed the furniture out of the way and danced through the choreography of Stammi Vicino in the living room with the doors open to the verandah, the sun setting over the sea and the sound of tree frogs all around. They paused at the end of the dance, in the final position with them both on their knees with their arms around each other, heads resting on each other's shoulders, breathing hard even though they hadn't tried to mimic the jumps. Po and Pom looked confused at the end of the dance and then slid off the sofa, bounding over to where Victor and Yuuri were kneeling. As soon as the Aonir touched them both Victor and Yuuri felt an emotional surge of joy and adulation that left them reeling.

“Wow! What was that?”

_That's how we celebrate great achievements on Aonir._

“I...I'm not sure if I could cope with that from a whole audience!” Yuuri gasped. He was breathing heavily and struggling to get his emotions back under control after the onslaught. It felt a little like the aftermath of one of the panic attacks he used to get and it wasn't pleasant.

“Yuuri?” Victor's worried voice broke his introspection.

Yuuri managed to smile up at his husband. He turned to the little aliens who were looking worried and sad. “I'm sorry, that was a bit much. I'm not used to it.”

 _I apologise._ Pom said. _We should have known that you may not like it._

Yuuri looked at them and struggled to explain just what it was like for him. “It's not that I don't like it, it's that it was too much. I felt overloaded.”

 _We're sorry. We liked your dance a lot and wanted to show you how much._ Po said.

“Do you dance?” Victor asked.

Po and Pom looked at each other seriously and then shook their heads. _We do not. We are sorry._

“It's not a problem. Not everyone on earth dances.” Yuuri said and then stifled a yawn. “I'm sorry, it's been a long day.” 

 Yuuri spat out the toothpaste and grinned at the memory, before joining Victor in their bed and passing out.

~

The sun was just coming over the horizon when Victor woke the next morning. Yuuri was nuzzled into his side, still heavily asleep. Victor took a moment to enjoy the closeness and warmth of his love before letting his mind stray back to the previous day. He still wasn't sure that Phichit's idea was going to work, but it was all they had to work with.

He lay back for a while wondering what they were going to do for the three days it would take for the packages to be delivered to the hardware shop in the small town. There was obviously no way they could go out and about with the Aonir. Victor wouldn't be at all surprised to find that despite their efforts the FAIRIs were still hanging around. He tried to suppress a chuckle so as not to wake the sleeping beauty by his side but failed miserably. Who on _Earth_ had thought up that acronym?

Although Victor would love to be able to go around telling people that he was a fairy, a 185 centimetre fairy. Maybe he could incorporate that into an ice show? Frankly one of the best things about being retired was planning the ice shows they organised regularly, and now Yuuri was retired, the world was their mollusc[1].

He was lost in pleasant daydreams about the next ice show they had planned for June, when he finally felt Yuuri stirring. Looking down he watched Yuuri wake up. Grinning when the thought occurred - if Victor was a fairy what would that make Yuuri? A rusalka, luring sane men to their doom? He would have to do some more research into Japanese mythology, he'd done enough programs based on Slavic mythology when he was younger.

“Victor, what are you smiling about?” Yuuri murmured.

“You, my love.” Victor replied. “Just wondering which mythological creature you would be if I was a fairy.”

Yuuri gave a snort of amusement. “Can't be stranger than the two we have in the house at the moment.”

“What are we going to do for the next three days? We can't go out with them, and with the amount of trouble they seem to get into, I'm not comfortable leaving them here while we go out. Something tells me that we weren't quite as persuasive as we should have been and the FAIRIs are still out there.”

Yuuri snorted again. “So that's what got you thinking about mythology.” Yuuri paused for a while. “I wonder if they play computer games on Aonir?”

Victor sighed in relief. “Yuuri! That's brilliant! We need something that will keep them occupied without going outside. You're so clever.” Victor kissed Yuuri on the head, or tried to, except that Yuuri had moved and he met Yuuri's mouth. It took them a while longer to get up.

~

After breakfast (Po had asked for Katsudon again, trying out his cutest expression, but even that was no contest for a sleepy Yuuri who wasn't awake enough to cook) and several coffees, Po and Pom were ensconced on the sofa with the Wii that had come with the house. Yuuri commented that although it was old, it still worked and it was less likely that Po would hack it than their laptop. Victor sat back with Yuuri in his arms, and watched Pom yelling in frustration after being blue bombed off rainbow road for the thousandth time.

Po seemed to be the more competitive of the duo. Their face was grim with concentration, their ears were standing up straight and they leaned forward as they used the remote. Pom was bouncing up and down on their seat with frustration as Po wiped the floor with them on every single race. Each time, Pom would let out a shriek of annoyance and Po would snigger, grinning wide.

Victor tried to take a sip of his coffee but found he couldn't move. He tried to look around but he could only slide his eyes from side to side. He looked at Yuuri who also seemed to be frozen. Po and Pom hadn't noticed anything wrong, they were too involved in the game to notice anything unusual. Victor tried to make a noise, but all that came out was a whine. Desperately swivelling his eyes from side to side he saw another small figure approaching Po and Pom. They were about the same size, but this one was dressed in green dungarees and had a weird white hat on their head. They reached out to touch Pom and Victor tried again to make any sort of warning noise through his frozen grin.

Pom jumped about twenty centimetres when the new Aonir touched them, at least Victor assumed that they were another of the aliens, from the size and the touching. They yelled and turned, face covered in surprise and then yelled “Coro!” before throwing themselves onto the newcomer, chittering away in their own language. That managed to break Po's concentration and they turned too. Leaping up and launching themselves at the newcomer bowling both Pom and the newcomer over in a heap. If he had been able to Victor would have laughed and moved to help them up.

The chittering heap of aliens were obviously filling each other in on the last couple of days. Yuuri managed to make a high pitched squeaking noise and that finally got their attention. Pom and Po looked round and their faces filled with fury when they saw the frozen humans. Another angry burst of chittering and Victor could finally move again. Pom walked over and placed their hands on Victor and Yuuri's knees.

_I'm sorry. Our friends didn't realise that you were also our friends. They heard me shouting at the game and thought we were being held prisoner._

“That's understandable I suppose. You said friends, but I can only see one Aonir?” Victor asked looking over to the one in green dungarees who was still hugging Po and shaking them back and forth scolding them gently.

Pom called out, “Monkichi!”

From around the other side of the sofa came another Aonir. This one had blond hair and a yellow and brown stripey top with a tight curled tail and was carrying what looked like a remote control. Their face had a mischievous expression and Yuuri was irresistibly reminded of Chris. Pom beckoned them both over imperiously.

_Give me your hands._

Victor and Yuuri dutifully held out their hands. Pom grabbed the green one's hand and placed it on Victor's and the yellow one's hand was placed on Yuuri's. Their eyes widened and smiles grew across their faces.

Pom turned back to Victor and Yuuri as Po let out an excited yell when they saw the gadget in the yellow one's hand.

_We can return to the ship easily now. We don't have to wait for the parts you asked your friend to get. I'm sorry that all your efforts were wasted._

“Hey, don't worry.” Yuuri said. “We're just glad you're going to get home quicker. How is this going to work? Do you just disappear back to the ship? I didn't notice a big light display like last time?”

Pom looked decidedly amused. _Monkichi is holding our_ Tocato, _the word doesn't properly translate, but it enables us to transport down to planets and to do other useful things, storing recordings, holding possible hostiles in a force field and so on._ Pom's grin grew at the last part of his statement.

“Possible hostiles? Us?” Victor managed to look offended and Yuuri blew him a kiss.

“Now why would anyone ever think you hostile Victor?” Yuuri asked with some amusement, remembering several incidents over the years where Victor had been hostile to anyone who dared to flirt with Yuuri.

 _In answer to your other questions, the light display was because someone_ accidentally _tripped a diplomatic transport grid which created the display of lights and as you know we ended up here._

Po had the grace to look slightly ashamed.

_But we are very pleased that we met you. As for getting back to the ship, I'm afraid that there probably isn't enough power left in the tocato to transport the four of us back up to the ship. But if we can get more power then we can leave without having to get lots of extra things._

“What type of power do you need?” Yuuri asked.

Po walked over to Monkichi and took the gadget off them, they then walked over to the Wii and examined the box. Po and Coro then walked over and examined the remotes and the box. A long conversation followed where the battery casing was removed and thoroughly examined.

Po looked over at Pom who had stayed beside Victor.

_Po wants to know if this gadget can be taken apart. They think it will be a solution to charging the Tocato._

Victor looked over at Yuuri, who shrugged. "I guess? We can always buy the owner a new one if they can't put it back together."

Po grinned at Victor as soon as Yuuri had finished speaking and toddled off to retrieve the screwdrivers and the collection of tools they had amassed since enhancing the roomba.

Yuuri slid across the sofa to lean on Victor while they watched the two Aonir set to work.

Victor wasn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't what he saw. These little aliens broke his expectations all the time. Each tiny part was carefully laid out in a grid pattern around the two Aonir. They were completely serious, conferring quietly and working diligently.

~

Victor woke slowly, he hadn't intended to take a nap, but with nothing to do and his arm round Yuuri who was curled up by his side, he had just drifted off. He was only waking up now because he was too hot. He blinked when he found he had a fluffy hat in his face and a whole lot of small bodies piled up on him and beside him.

He carefully glanced sideways to look at Yuuri, trying not to disturb the small creatures on him. Yuuri obviously noticed the movement and looked up.

"I've been awake a while." He whispered. "They're so cute, I can't move."

Pom's hat was the one pressed against Victor's chin. Coro had snuggled under his right arm with Monkichi laying across Victor's lap. Po looked the most comfortable between Victor and Yuuri. Laying back with their mouth open and small snores coming out.

Victor tried not to make a noise but the sheer adorableness of the whole situation made him squeak a little.

He found that Po was steadily regarding him and he bit his lip so he didn't coo. Po had made it quite plain, thank you very much, that they did not like to be called cute.

_I'm hungry._

“I'll go and get you something.” Yuuri said and eased himself away from Victor and the other Aonir. Po quickly scrambled off the sofa and toddled after Yuuri, his little tail wagging, Victor couldn't help another squeak escaping.

By the time Yuuri returned with a tray laden with snacks the others had all woken up too. They dived on the food with delight and Victor was sent back to the kitchen to get more.

“So,” Victor glanced over to where the Wii used to be after placing the tray on the table again, and was surprised to see that it looked like it had been put back together perfectly. “Was the Wii useful? Did you manage to fix your Tocato?”

Pom scrambled up into his lap again. _Yes, we are capable of transporting ourselves now and we can go back to the ship._

“When do you want to go?” Victor asked with a slight pang in his heart.

 _We ought to be gone before those other humans come back._ Pom said.

 _A high place would be best._ Po suggested from Yuuri's lap. _Especially with four to transport._

“I have my concerns that we're being watched,” Yuuri joined in. “I'm not sure we managed to fool those agents as much as we hoped. So it's probably best to wait until it's dark. There's only another four hours to go before sunset. Why don't we have lunch and we can walk up the hill to say goodbye later.”

 _Katsudon!_ Po slid off Yuuri's lap, bounced up and down on the floor and rushed over to the other two Aonir in excitement, grabbing their hands and dragging them over to Yuuri.

Yuuri grinned and agreed to make Katsudon as their goodbye meal. Coro and Monkichi said they just had to see what all the fuss was about. Yuuri laughed at Po's antics and sat him on the counter-top to watch. Victor organised the other three into helping to chop and coat the chicken pieces while they stood on chairs around the table.

Yuuri surpassed himself and produced a katsudon that was as good as Hiroko's. The Aonir were completely enamoured and totally silent as they dived straight into the bowls. And even though Victor had eaten the dish so many times before he couldn't help letting out a “Vkusno!” and kissed his blushing husband on the cheek.

A round of contented sighs later and a lot of help with cleaning the dishes, Victor was cradling a mug of steaming coffee in his hands. Yuuri leaned back next to him against the kitchen worktop and they both watched Po explain to Coro just how they had altered the Roomba and then Pom turned pink and the Aonir all fell over laughing.

“They've got to the bit of the story where it took off with Pom on top of it.” Yuuri commented. “Your face was a picture after I'd grabbed Pom.” He grinned into his coffee and glanced sideways at Victor.

Victor snorted inelegantly, “I have most certainly not been bored in the last day or so. I think I'm going to miss them.”

“Yeah.” Yuuri said quietly, staring at the small aliens gathered round the Roomba. Victor snaked his arm round Yuuri's waist and pulled his husband closer.

“Let's go and relax. Tonight's going to be interesting.” Victor stood up and took Yuuri's hand to lead him into the living area, just wanting to cuddle his gorgeous husband for a while.

~

“If you would be so good as to raise your hands, gentlemen.”

Victor stopped in his tracks as he stepped into the lounge area, tightening his grip on Yuuri's hand. The sarcastic voice of Dr Fisher left echoes in the room and a cold wash of fear surged through him. The two female agents were standing just inside the front door and they all had their guns raised, pointing at Victor. Dr Fisher gestured with the gun and Victor jumped a little as he realised he'd frozen in shock rather than raising his hands.

He lifted both hands over his head trying not to pour hot coffee everywhere. He felt a small body hugging one leg and knew that Pom would be peering round looking at the agents. There was silence for a while and then a flurry of movement as Po and Coro launched themselves at the agents.

“No!” Victor shouted, dropping the mug of coffee as he launched himself forward, hoping to stop the little aliens from being shot. 

“Stop! I _will_ shoot!” Dr Fisher shouted. Then her eyes became panicked as she realised she couldn't move. Victor was suspended slightly above the floor to his complete disbelief. There was total silence for a minute.

Po and Coro had stopped as soon as the humans froze. Victor saw from the corner of his eye, that Monkichi had rushed over to the gadget while Po and Coro were distracting the agents and would have heaved a sigh of relief if he wasn't stuck in mid-air, only able to take faint breaths.

He watched as three Aonir walked up to the agents, completely unafraid, and touched their hands. He felt a small paw touch his hand and rolled his eyes to try to look down.

 _Unfortunately we cannot unfreeze you. The Tocato will freeze all alien life except Aonir._ Po said. _My partners are seeing if the other humans are a threat or not._

Victor would have raised his eyebrows, but tried to think clearly enough to ask a question. _What happens if they are a threat?_

_We will leave immediately. You will unfreeze when the Tocato is out of range._

Victor's heart sank at the thought of the friendly aliens just disappearing from their lives without being able to say goodbye properly.

~

Jessica had been bubbling with excitement for the last few days. She wanted to shout and scream all over twitter about meeting Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov and _his husband_. Agent Fisher had firmly reminded her, with a furious glare, of the top secret nature of the investigation and told her she could fangirl in her own time. _After_ the mission had finished.

When she was assigned to stake out the house, she knew immediately that it was because Agent Fisher wasn't above manipulating her fangirlhood to gain an eagle-eyed observer. 

Jessica did this sort of thing all the time. Staking out a house was nothing new, but somehow – this time – it felt wrong. Feeling like the worst sort of fan stalker, she watched as the two men, very obviously in love, laughed and danced in the living room that evening.

She made her report back to Agent Fisher, including the child-like footprints she'd found and the two children that the Katsuki-Nikiforovs had carried upstairs.

Jessica's heart sank when Agent Fisher announced that they were going to confront the Katsuki-Nikiforovs the very next day. She felt sick as they got quietly out of the car, far enough down the track from the house that they wouldn't be heard or seen. She had tears in her eyes as they quietly entered the house through the front door while Agent Garcia circled round to the back. She could hear the noise of a cheerful conversation in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Jessica felt her heart suddenly shoot from the depths of her stomach straight into her throat as the four children ran out into the room. She froze. There was no way she was going to shoot _children_. Agent Fisher shouted as Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov launched himself after the children running towards them. Her hand shook, but when she tried to move to intervene she found she couldn't. _What the hell?_

The children ran up to her and Agent Fisher and touched their hands. A flood of impressions went through her mind as her brain replayed the last few days back to her with all the emotions she experienced as well. The house was weirdly silent with the five frozen people, Agent Garcia was standing in the door behind Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov, also abnormally still. Suddenly she found she could move again and gasped as Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov gracelessly sprawled on the floor.

“Oh my God!” She shrieked and ran forwards, just as Yuuri shouted “Victor!”

Victor was blinking hard as Jessica knelt beside him wanting to check for injuries, but at the same time not wanting to touch Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov. He waved her off saying “I'm OK, I'm OK. I'm just embarrassed.” He didn't sound too sure and Jessica eyed him nervously.

She glanced back up to where Agent Fisher was standing, the gun dangling from her lowered hand. She looked down at Jessica. “I...I'm sorry!” Her voice quavered.

Jessica marvelled, she had never seen Agent Fisher so discombobulated. If there was one defining feature of Agent Fisher it was her rock hard certainty, her ability to know what to do in any circumstance, but then they'd never actually met any alien lifeforms before. Until today it was all theory.

Before she could say anything Jessica's mouth dropped open in shock as Agent Fisher fainted. Daniel rushed past and dropped to his knees by Agent Fisher's side.

Yuuri took an audible breath, “Why don't we all sit down and calm down for a bit?” He helped Victor to his feet.

~

Twenty minutes later, with a boiled kettle and the aroma of tea and coffee wafting around the room, Agent Fisher had recovered. She was nursing a mug of coffee beside Jessica and Daniel was on Agent Fisher's other side holding an arm around her protectively. Jessica rolled her eyes, she had wondered how long it would be before the two of them actually admitted it.

She had to confess that she was still in a state of shock. The small children were actually aliens and _she had made tea with Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov and they had both asked them to call them by their first names! She was calling the Katsuki-Nikiforovs by their first names!_ She let out a small squeal of excitement by accident, then coughed and felt her cheeks flush when everyone turned to look at her.

“Sorry!”

Coro and Monkicki approached the seated agents and Jessica slid back nervously. She found the aliens ridiculously adorable, but Victor and Yuuri had taken pains to inform them of their ages, intelligence, lack of gender and the way they communicate telepathically. Po and Pom had been sitting on Victor and Yuuri's laps all this time. Coro looked up at her and held up their hands in a universally understood request to be picked up. Their dark eyes were twinkling in what she thought was amusement. Her eyes widened and she looked at Victor and Yuuri seeking understanding.

“Coro wants you to pick them up so they can talk to you.” Victor said, slightly amused at how nervous the agents seemed to be.

“Okay.” Jessica tried not to let her nerves show, there had been rather a lot of surprises in too short a time in the last thirty minutes. She reached out and picked up Coro, settling the small alien gingerly in her lap. Monkichi had climbed up between Daniel and Agent Fisher and wriggled his small butt until the agents separated enough to let Monkichi get between them.

She saw Yuuri watching in amusement at their reactions. Jessica knew she was visibly struggling. The idea that the adorably cute little alien sitting in her lap was actually far older than her and their equivalent of married with children was hard to grasp. She realised her mouth was hanging open and closed it. It dropped open again when Monkichi spoke telepathically _in her head._

 _Are all humans like this?_ Monkichi asked.

 _Almost all of them._ She heard the amusement in Yuuri's reply.

The other agents were affected just as badly. Daniel was frozen as Coro fidgeted beside him and Agent Fisher was just staring at all the Aonir in turn.

Eventually, after a long silence, Agent Fisher cleared her throat and swallowed visibly before trying to speak.

“The...the purpose of FAIRI is to study incidents worldwide and if there is evidence of alien activity, to document it.” She visibly pulled herself together. “We only have guidelines on how to react if contact actually occurs. Nothing really prepares you for it.”

Yuuri chuckled, “You can say that again.”

“We...also...know what our governments are rumoured to be like and can understand why Victor and Yuuri tried to hide you. We–” She nodded at the agents on either side of her, “–just want to help and learn more about everything.”

“What will you have to report back?” Victor asked.

“Well, that's up to the Aonir here. We can report back whatever you allow us to, and maybe in the future official contact could be made between our people.” Agent Fisher smiled and the atmosphere relaxed. Jessica felt herself relax and tried to think of the most important questions of the many that were running through her mind.

~

The agent's questions had finally dried up, leaving them quiet and stunned. They had decided to keep to the plan they had made earlier and left the house before sunset,  walking at the Aonir's pace up the hill. The undergrowth was silent apart from a few bird calls. Monkichi was guiding them with the Tocato to the spot they had visited in the dark only a day earlier. Yuuri watched as Po and Pom led the way, biting his lip when he glanced at Victor to see his husband with his hand over his mouth, his eyes wide. Victor sensed Yuuri's gaze and looked back, he reached over with his hand and gripped Yuuri's tightly. Po and Pom were also holding hands, Po's little legs trotting to keep up with Pom's longer stride. Both their tails were wagging.

Someone stumbled behind them. Yuuri turned his head to look and saw that Coro and Monkichi had their heads together obviously silently discussing something causing Jessica to stumble over a root though sheer adorableness.

The three agents were walking at the back were still in a slight state of shock over everything they'd heard, Yuuri grinned at their blank faced expressions, well aware of his own amazement just one day earlier. It would certainly take more than two or three hours to recover.

Po stopped suddenly, panting and turned round. They walked over to Yuuri and touched his hand. _My legs are too short, I am making everyone slow._ It had only taken one blink of those large brown eyes for Yuuri to reach out and Po to scramble up into Yuuri's arms. Pom had huffed in amusement.

The climb up the hill felt too short to Yuuri. He didn't know why he was surprised to see that the hollow at the top of the hill was exactly the same as it was the night before. In the light it just looked like a normal hollow, with the tree canopy framing the starry sky and cacao trees lower down stopping the light reaching the earth surrounding the bare rocky area that made up the centre of the clearing.

They all paused at the edge of the trees and Yuuri placed Po back on the ground. The Aonir conferred for a while and then separated while Monkichi walked to the bottom of the hollow, their curly hair glowing in the starlight. They fiddled for a short while with the settings of the Tocato and then beckoned to the group at the top.

Po turned with a small bounce to face Yuuri and Yuuri knelt down, putting his hands out for Po to touch. 

 _I have enjoyed meeting you very much._ The small creature said.

“Me too, even though it's only been a day.” Yuuri suddenly found it hard to talk past the lump in his throat. “Will we see you again?”

Po looked up at the three agents waiting behind Victor and Yuuri. Agent Fisher stepped forward.

“You know we would be delighted to learn more about you and your people. We're looking forward to the day when you contact us officially.” Agent Fisher then dropped her formal tone and grinned widely. “Please, please come back.” She then dropped to her knees and held out her hands. “This is all so amazing. I never thought I'd meet actual aliens. Actual Aliens! And you're so cu–” Her voice trailed off as she realised what she was about to say and clapped a hand over her mouth.

Yuuri bit his lip in amusement, but raised his eyebrows when he saw tears in her eyes. Who'd've thought that the fearsome agent from FAIRI was a big softie inside.

Pom and Coro toddled over to Agent Fisher and they all held out their hands for the three agents to touch. Po made sure to hold Victor and Yuuri's hands.

_We are glad that you are not as fierce as you seemed at first. We will come back and greet you officially. If all humans are open to us as you are then we will be very happy._

Agent Fisher sobbed. If this was a cartoon Yuuri's jaw would be on the floor at this point. He looked over to Victor who returned a raised eyebrow and a rueful grin.

“So? We will see you again?” Yuuri asked eagerly.

 _I hope so. We will see each other again._ Po let go of Yuuri's hand and reached up to pat his chest. _I'll be right here._

Yuuri swallowed with difficulty, trying to resist the urge to cry. _I'll be waiting._

Po grinned at him and then launched himself into Yuuri's arms once more for a final hug. Yuuri looked at Victor over Po's small head, Victor smiled and gripped Yuuri's shoulder.

Po leaned back. _We have to leave now, the ship is waiting._

Yuuri gently let the small alien slide to the ground. With one last pat to Yuuri's hand Po scampered over to the other Aonir who were waiting in a group in the clearing.

Victor and Yuuri held hands as the Aonir were surrounded by the rainbow lights. They didn't create a huge column this time, but just swirled up from the ground to the same height as the Aonir. The four little figures in the middle of the circle stood quietly and as they disappeared surrounded by the lights, Yuuri could see them lifting their paws to wave. Yuuri waved back as the light faded taking the small forms with it.

~

The house was quiet. Too strangely quiet after only two days of having two lively little aliens on the rampage. Both Victor and Yuuri moped around, their enjoyment in the holiday lost. They didn't even have to talk about it, but when Yuuri came across Victor sadly packing a bag one afternoon he just joined in and started packing too.

“Say, Yuuri?”

“Yes, Victor?”

“When we get back to Japan, what do you think about looking into adoption?”

Yuuri grinned at Victor. The image of Victor on the sofa with Pom on his lap inserted itself into Yuuri's head. Then more images poured into his mind. A small child draped over Makkachin, both of them fast asleep in the dog's bed. Sounds of children's laughter and a dog barking on the beach at Hasetsu. Sandcastles, like the ones he used to make on the beach with Mari. Teaching the Aonir how to make Katsudon but with their own children instead.

Yuuri blinked and pulled himself out of his daydreaming, realising that his hand was covering his mouth. He looked up at Victor and saw the nervous, hopeful smile on Victor's face and the slightly worried look in his eyes. Now he was retired, they could be stable and remain in one place all year. They could think about taking on more responsibility, gaining more life in the house. Yuuri let his expression show the emotions he was having, smiling so hard his jaw ached.

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes. We should definitely look into adoption.” Yuuri flew into Victor's arms, hugging him so hard his ribs creaked. He grinned into Victor's shoulder and then pushed back and said seriously. “I think maybe, just one at first. Two was hard work.”

They both laughed and turned to begin packing in earnest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 mollusc - or salty seawater flavoured shell fish of your choice. Thank you Sir Terry Pratchett :) [return to text]
> 
> Thank you for reading my little story. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a kudos or even a comment (love you forever) on your way out.
> 
> I'm looking forward to publishing the first chapter of my angst bang in the near future, hopefully it won't take quite as long as this chapter *sweats buckets*

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks go to [RTengu](https://rtengu.tumblr.com) who has been enthusiastic all the way through. She's supported me with suggestions when I was stuck and has cheered me on. This honestly wouldn't have happened without her.
> 
> Thanks also to [Wolfs_Ayame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfs_Ayame) and [Snow_Falls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow_Falls) who are beta reading this for me.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought in the comments, I'm open to constructive criticism, and kudos makes me feel like it's all worthwhile.
> 
> As always I'm on tumblr [@narcissuspseudonarcissus](https://narcissuspseudonarcissus.tumblr.com/) and twitter [@daffy_dsoh](https://twitter.com/daffy_dsoh). Come and chat!


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